A spokeswoman for Laramie County School District#1 says a lot of information and discussion goes into any decision on closing schools due to winter weather.

Mary Quast says district transportation workers are out evaluating travel conditions as early as 3 a.m. during winter storms to try to determine whether the streets are safe.

Quast says Superintendent John Lyttle and other district officials also drive around the district to get a first-hand look at conditions and are also busy monitoring the latest reports from the National Weather Service around the same time.

Quast says the district also is in constant contact with the Cheyenne Police Department and other emergency responders to evaluate current travel conditions as well as to try to predict whether it will be safe to drive the streets later in the day.

She says if it looks like travel conditions will be dangerous for two wheel drive vehicles and school buses the district tries to get a cancellation announcement out to parents using the "shout point" messenger system no later than 5.30 a.m.

Quast also says it's not unusual for city schools to be open, but schools in rural areas, including Clawson, Willadsen, and Gilchrist, to be closed because of dangerous rural travel conditions.

She says in that situation the "shout point" system is not used, because residents of the city are often displeased at being disturbed at such an early hour when their schools are not being canceled.

But she says all rural bus routes will be canceled on those days.

District Director of Special Services J.P. Denning also says that in bad weather parents in any part of the district can call their children's school principal to ask that they can be excused from school because of the potential danger faced in getting to school.

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